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Cities from the sea: the true cost of reclaimed land
- burlesona 8y agoPretty interesting article. Sadly, while reading, I had a hard time not dreaming about whether we could afford a home here in SF if they filled in, oh, 1/4 or so of the bay with high rise housing. :(
- joeyo 8y agoLook no further than Mission Bay ...
- ajmurmann 8y agoOr we could fill in the avenues with high rise housing. I cannot stop dreaming of taking a 5*10 block section of the Richmond or Sunset and build a massive arcology on it. All Bay Area housing issues might be solved in one swoop.
- cafard 8y agoThere's plenty of fill in San Francisco. You just might not want to be in a building there when an earthquake hits.
- hprotagonist 8y agoNever fear, the ocean will take it all away again in 20 years.
- mc32 8y agoAs mentioned din the intro, Japan (and HK) have been doing this for quite some time and have had success with it. Looks like the issue is the pace of the development along with marine ecosystem disruption (they throw in a bit about fishers, but that's a distractive side issue). So that makes me wonder, in places where land near the sea is more or less unimpeded by mountain, can they not just as easily, and perhaps more so, carve wide channels and create similar land-sea living environments? Do all you shaping and digging and then at the end, blow the dikes and let the sea rush in and settle. Instead of taking land to the sea, bring the sea to land.
- jpatokal 8y agoJapan is a world champion at destroying marine & terrestrial ecosystems. Virtually all of Japan's coastline (yes, seriously) is covered in tetrapods, all of its rivers except one (1) have been dammed and largely encased in concrete, 41% of its old-growth forests have been uprooted and replaced largely with a monoculture of cedar [3], etc. [1] https://www.japantimes.co.jp/life/2007/07/22/general/tetrapods/ https://www.japantimes.co.jp/life/2007/07/22/general/tetrapo... [2] https://ejatlas.org/conflict/nagaragawa-dam https://ejatlas.org/conflict/nagaragawa-dam [3] https://www.nytimes.com/1995/01/17/science/japan-s-cedar-forests-are-man-made-disaster.html https://www.nytimes.com/1995/01/17/science/japan-s-cedar-for... But hey, landing at Kansai or Chubu airports (built entirely on reclaimed land) is kinda neat...
- eksemplar 8y agoI find it mind boggling that we’re doing these ocean cities. In Denmark we’re doing it as well, though mostly by using old unused habourspace and not by reclaiming land. The result is really expensive real estate in locations that will be hit by climate change the hardest. We haven’t managed to do much about climate change in the past 35 years and now we’re at a point where we need to change our society so radically in 3-5 years that it just won’t happen. Since it won’t happen, that million dollar apartment with ocean view is sort of a scam. Because that’s really not where you want to live in 20 years. Right now the best place to buy property is in one of the few geographical locations that won’t get absolutely fucked by climate change, and reclaiming the ocean is the opposite of that.
- perilunar 8y agoInstead of reclaiming land from the sea, they could just build floating cities. e.g. https://www.seasteading.org https://www.seasteading.org
- AstralStorm 8y agoThe main problem with this approach is the maintenance cost. Not that flood prevention in a typical beachside property is a low cost.